Based in North Fort Myers, FL, Crazy Deals Home Superstore began in 2016. “At first,” says Nikki Reed, who co-founded the store with her husband, Mitch Alberio, “we mostly dealt in scratch-and-dent furniture.” As their customer base grew rapidly, Reed and Alberio began bringing in new merchandise to meet the demand.

Seeing the need.

“We started having a lot of folks coming in who couldn’t afford what they wanted,” says Reed. “Many of them didn’t qualify for credit, either.” For such customers, options were limited. “They either went away emptyhanded, or they had to settle for something less nice than what they really wanted.”

The Acima competitor

Crazy Deals wanted a solution that would allow all customers to purchase good furniture, regardless of damaged or thin credit files. They found their answer—or so they thought—in a company that offered no-credit-needed financing. As they soon found, however, not all lease-purchase companies are created equal. This Acima competitor “was such a pain to work with,” according to Reed, “that we hardly wanted to use them.” Citing a poor user interface, buggy software, and unresponsive tech support, Reed recollects how “processing a lease was far more effort than it should have been.”

Acima enters the picture

“One of our back-room workers had some knowledge of Acima Credit from a previous employer,” Nikki Reed remembers. “So, we gave it a try. As soon as we started using Acima, the difference was enormous.” Crazy Deals funded its first Acima lease in September of 2016—and hasn’t looked back. To date (mid-May 2018), the company has used Acima’s No Credit Needed solution for more than a thousand tickets.

Hurricane Irma

On September 10, 2017, Hurricane Irma ravaged Florida, and Lee County did not escape her wrath. With three-fourths of a billion dollars in property damage, the county struggled to cope in the ensuing weeks. Nikki Reed describes how Crazy Deals “had folks coming in here who lost everything.” With Acima’s No Credit Needed financing, however, many of these victims “were able to qualify and refurnish their homes.”

The grateful furniture customer

Reed recounts the story of a particular customer. “One woman lost her whole house and everything in it. She needed to completely start over.” When she applied for No Credit Needed financing through Acima, “she qualified for a high enough amount to get much of what she needed” for her new home. The only problem: she was so destitute she lacked even the requisite $42.00 for the Acima upfront cost. In a stunning display of charitable generosity, Mitch Alberio paid the upfront cost out of his own pocket. “My husband told her, ‘don’t worry about the forty-two dollars—just be sure to make your payments to Acima.’ She couldn’t believe it.” With the combination of the Acima lease-purchase plus Alberio’s generosity “she was able to go home with really nice furniture.”

Crazy Deals—and, by extension, Acima Credit—earned a loyal customer that day. “She really appreciated the ability to finance through Acima,” remembers Reed. “She paid off her lease and came back and got another.” Others did the same. “We get a lot of return customers who pay off their Acima lease and come back prequalified for an even higher amount.”

Impressive numbers

Acima’s No Credit Needed financing solution has brought a sizeable additional revenue flow to Crazy Deals. “We’ve done fifty-eight thousand already in May,” Reed says, “and the month’s barely half over.” Indeed, for 2018 to date, the store has averaged well over $100,000.00 per month in Acima-financed business*. Nikki Reed sums up the impact of Acima on their bottom line: “It’s been huge.”

The Acima evangelist

Nikki Reed recommends Acima to her friends. “I have friends who own stores or who work at other stores,” she says, and I’m always telling them they should offer Acima to their customers.” Persuaded by her endorsement, a number of them have begun to do exactly that. “I tell them how easy it is to run an Acima lease, and how much Acima will add to their bottom line.”

Reed appreciates how Acima “customer service is super helpful and friendly,” and how “the reps are great to work with.” Speaking of Sean Robinson, her Acima Merchant Success Manager, she marvels how “he’s available whenever I need to talk to him. He’ll even drop what he’s doing on a weekend and get on his computer for me.”